DFA brings home over 400 stranded Filipinos from HK, Japan, Myanmar

Filipino household workers in Hong Kong pose for a photo before boarding their special flight to the Philippines. Photo courtesy of the DFA

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) assisted the repatriation of over 400 Filipinos from Hong Kong, Japan and Myanmar as the world continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the DFA, some 190 Filipino nationals were brought home from Hong Kong on two separate flights on June 27 and 29 arranged by the Philippine Consulate General there.

“The repatriates were mostly household service workers whose contracts were either terminated or have ended, and their flights going back to the Philippines were canceled several times,” the DFA said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Among them were several pregnant women, a couple of medical cases, and a repatriate with an expired visa,” it added.

The DFA also said that the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo assisted in the repatriation of 204 stranded Filipino tourists, students, and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Japan.

The repatriated arrived in the Philippine via a chartered flight on July 4.

“The 204 passengers, some coming from as far as Okinawa, departed from Narita International Airport onboard the third repatriation flight organized by the Embassy since travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in multiple cancellations of commercial flights for stranded Filipinos in Japan,” according to the DFA.

This latest batch of repatriates brings the total of Filipinos repatriated by the embassy to 815 since February.

Meanwhile, 17 stranded Filipinos in Myanmar joined the special repatriation flight on July 5 from Yangon to Manila organized by the Philippine Embassy in Yangon and in coordination with Myanmar Airways International.

Most of the Filipino repatriates from Myanmar “lost their jobs or have not had their contracts renewed by their employers,” the DFA said.

Four of the Filipino passengers had been working in Grand Andaman Hotel in Kawthaung, a town located in the Tanintharyi Region of Myanmar.

The hotel they were working for, the DFA added, “had been negatively impacted by the pandemic due to lack of tourists.”

“Another four of the passengers are pregnant women who have chosen to go back to the Philippines to give birth in their respective provinces,” the DFA also said.

Latest figures from the DFA showed that a total of 8,688 overseas Filipinos have contracted the virus. Of the number, 2,893 patients remain under treatment while 5,218 have already recovered or been discharged from the hospital.

CFC